Funeral PovertyS i m o n C o x

H e a d o f I n s i g h t a n d E x t e r n a l A f f a i r s

Thursday 1st December 2016

Firstly, what is the problem?

• There is significant interest in Funeral Poverty, which has attracted wide ranging

media and political comment

• Funeral Poverty is defined as being where “the price of a funeral is beyond a person’s

ability to pay”

• Lobbyists have

• Challenged successive governments north/south of the border to improve the system

• Criticised Local Authorities for rises in cremation and burial costs

• Criticised Funeral Directors for not offering lower cost/alternative funeral solutions

• Thankfully – things seem to be moving

Funeral Poverty is (sadly) not new

• 1800’s Victorian paupers graves

• 1860’s Burial clubs/Penny Policies

• 1949 Death Grant £20 rising to £30 in 1967

• 1984 Public Health (control of disease act)

• 2003 Cap on funeral payment

• 2010 Annual Funeral Cost Reports

• 2011 Parliamentary interest

• 2013 Funeral Poverty Alliance

• 2016 Select Committee Enquiry

• 2016 Burial and Cremation Act (Scotland)

1900s Victorian funeral bill

What’s dr iv ing up

costs?

Annual deaths influencing costs

• Funeral costs stalled in 2015

• The number of deaths fell by

c13% between 1995-2010

• A rise between 2013-2014, has

helped suppress funeral cost

rises

• Number of Funeral Directors

has risen from less than 4,000

to nearly 6,000 in the same

period 500,000

520,000

540,000

560,000

580,000

600,000

620,000

640,000

660,000

1995 2000 2005 2010 2014 2015

Fall and rise in annual UK deaths 1995-2015

Source FBCA

10 years rise in funeral costs %

The single biggest element

remains the funeral directors

costs at £2200

Greatest percentage rises seen

in 3rd party costs rising on

average at 7% a year

Doctors fees rising the least at

just under 2% a year

Source Sun Life/Royal London

State benef i t up to

scratch?

Issues with SFFEP well documented

• Application and eligibility complex

• Flawed process

• Eroding value

• Slow response

• Applications/awards continue to

decline

Source Department of Work and Pensions

SFFEP issues well documented

• Funeral spend fell from £3,702 - £3,675

• Funeral Poverty rose to £147m because of a rise in the number of deaths

• Between 2014 and 2016 – using same number of deaths, funeral poverty

would have shown no increase

• Average award of £1,410, an inflation busting 2.5%!

Rising costs and weak

benef i t impact ing LAs

Present: Local Authorities taking up the slack

2011 Report suggested that

• 2900 PHFs in England and Wales

• £2.1m spent

• Families bypassing SFFEP going straight to local authorities

2014 data for BBC in 2015

• Number of PHFs had risen by over 10%

• The cost to Local Authorities had risen by a third

• Excluded data from authorities with significant numbers

Without change, LAs will increasingly pick up the slack

Things are changing

Central and local government pro-active

• Burial and Cremation Act (Scotland)

• Select Committee Enquiry

• Holyrood and Westminster actively engaged with stakeholders and

opinion formers

• Cardiff City Council, Sandwell

Funeral directors also becoming creative

Poppy’s

• Highest profile female funeral director challenging

traditions, simple funerals, colourful vans.

Direct Cremation operators

• Low cost model of unattended funerals,

• Highly localised,

• Small operators filling need for direct cremations.

What is Dignity

doing to contribute?

Consumer behaviour is changing

• Annual UK direct cremation volumes estimated to be between 3%-5% of UK deaths

• Unattended service volumes through our own crematoria support these figures

• Online search volumes related to direct cremation or no service funerals are

increasing, supporting claims that the market is growing

Source: Google analytics

We are launching a new service today

SimplicityCremations.co.uk

A national unattended

direct cremation service

from £1,495.

Simplicity Cremations

A low cost alternative funeral for those who don’t want, or cannot afford, a traditional

funeral.

• Online or telephone access to the service 24/7, 365

• Collection from anywhere, not restricted to hospitals

• Use our own mortuary facilities, not rely on local hospital mortuaries

• Same high standard of care of the deceased

• Nationwide face to face support to complete all paperwork required to legally proceed.

• The return of the ashes or scattering in the crematoria memorial gardens.

• 24hr bereavement advice and counselling service

• Only exclusions / additional costs (Doctors Fees and ‘out of hours’ collection)

• This low cost service is limited (no viewing, embalming, funeral service)

Providing access to all Funeral Directors

• Direct Cremation slots at Dignity Crematoria will be made available to all Funeral Directors

(Co-Op and Independents)

• The cost to Funeral Directors for these slots will be £499.

• The service will be provided on first come, first served basis.

• In total this will provide capacity for over 20,000 cremation slots.

Thank you.

Any questions?